Vietnam and U.S.

Science and
Technology Collaboration:
20 Years After Normalization

By Tran Ngoc Ca and Jesse J.K. Szeto

S
ince U.S. President Bill Clinton announced the normalization of ties between the U.S. and Vietnam on July 11, 1995, scientific and
research collaboration between the two countries has increased dramatically. Even before diplomatic normalization, science and technology
cooperation between the two countries was reinitiated in the 1980s through the US Committee for Science Cooperation with Vietnam and
Laos, which was headed by the late Judy Ladinsky, a professor from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. However, the level of collaboration
has substantially increased in just the past 7 years: in 2008, there was a total of 5 U.S. federal grants and 2 sub-grants to Vietnamese
organizations. In contrast, by 2014, those numbers had increased to 60 grants and 29 sub-grants. In all, from 2008-2015, there has been a total of 249
grants and 140 sub-grants to Vietnamese organizations, totaling $115 million (see Chart 1). As Table 1 indicates, four federal agencies accounted for
more than 95 percent of these grants and sub-grants: DHHS, USAID, Department of State, and Department of Defense. The predominance of
health-related projects is even clearer in Table 2 which shows that 16 of the top 20 recipients of U.S. federal grants and sub-grants in Vietnam are to
health-related organizations such as the Vietnam Administration for HIV/AIDS Control, the Ho Chi Minh City AIDS Committee, and the National Institute
of Hygiene and Epidemiology.
In addition, more than 16,000 students and scholars from Vietnam currently study in the U.S., and since 2000, the two countries have signed a
Bilateral Agreement on Science & Technology Cooperation, paving the way for the dramatic increase in scientific collaboration and setting up the
infrastructure to further deepen STI (Science, Technology, and Innovation) ties. One result of this has been a Joint Committee Meeting (JCM) that is
held once every two years to bring together scientific and diplomatic stakeholders from both countries to focus on potential areas of collaboration as
well as to report on the progress on current joint projects. In fact, the 8th JCM was held in Washington, DC, in 2013 and included working groups on
the following topics:
■Biotechnology and agriculture ■ Hydrology, meteorology, and storm forecasting
■Healthcare and medical ■ Public, private, community partnerships to
■STEM education and research exchange facilitate science and technology innovation
■Conservation sciences
30 NCURA Magazine
 In addition to the formal working groups, a discussion group on space
sciences and technology was also held. This year, which marks the 20th
anniversary of diplomatic normalization between the two countries,
Vietnam will host the 9th JCM in Ho Chi Minh City.
Among the key pillars for research and higher education collaboration
between the U.S. and Vietnam is the Vietnam Education Foundation (VEF),
which was created by the U.S. Congress in 2000 for the purpose of building
a closer relationship between the two countries and helping Vietnam build
excellence in science and technology through educational exchange.
Funded at $5 million annually until 2018, VEF supports 3 different
exchange programs:
1. Fellowships for Vietnamese citizens pursuing graduate
degrees in the U.S.
2. Visiting Scholar grants for Vietnamese citizens to receive
post-doctoral training in the U.S.
3. U.S. Faculty Scholar grants for U.S. professors to
teach at Vietnamese academic institutions.
More than a hundred U.S. universities have signed memoranda of un-
derstanding with VEF, including the largest U.S. research universities, and
more than 30 Vietnamese universities, including the top universities in the
country, are a part of the VEF alliance.
While no Vietnamese university is among the list of top 20 Vietnamese
recipients of U.S. federal grants or sub-grants in Table 2, a growing number
of Vietnamese universities have been quite successful at collaborating with
U.S. universities and / or in applying directly for U.S. federal grants, includ-
ing six universities that received more than $100,000 in combined
grants/sub-grants between 2008-2015 (see Table 3).
One example of the longest-standing and most robust collaborations has
been a multi-faceted collaboration between the University of California, Los
Angeles (UCLA) and the Vietnam National University – Ho Chi Minh City
(VNU-HCM). Starting with a Master Affiliation Agreement in 2011, which
paved the way to establishing the Molecular and Nanoarchitecture
(MANAR) Research Center between the two universities and with the Uni-
versity of California, Berkeley, as a third partner, the collaboration has since
expanded to include the Center for Global Mentoring (CGM) and the Jon-
sson Comprehensive Cancer Center (JCCC)-VNU collaboration on cancer.
MANAR’s mission is to create world-class nanomaterials research capability
at VNU-HCM and eventually in Vietnam as a whole through mentorship
programs for young Vietnamese scientists to work with world-class nano-
Table 1: U.S. Federal Grants / Subgrants to Vietnamese Universities (2008-2015)
U.S. Federal Agencies Total Grant/Subgrant Amounts
Department of Health and Human Services
U.S. Agency for International Development
Department of State
Department of Defense
Department of the Interior
Department of Agriculture
Environmental Protection Agency
Grand Total
Vietnam National
University - Ho
Chi Minh City
(VNU-HCM)
materials research groups at UCLA and UC Berkeley. By 2012, this had re-
sulted in a $3.2 million MANAR Center at VNU-HCM that will support a PhD
program in nanomaterials there, focusing on applying nanomaterials to
energy and environmental uses, including natural gas purification, storage,
and conversion and solar energy systems. The Center for Global Mentoring
(CGM) focuses on training VNU-HCM biomedical students in advanced bi-
ology and chemistry through a new biomedical degree program that inte-
grates a 2-year training period at a UCLA biomedical lab.
In addition to their own training, the CGM program equips the students to
provide further mentoring training after returning to Vietnam, thus
ensuring the sustainability and expansion of high-level biomedical mentoring
in Vietnamese universities.
The JCCC-VNU cancer collaboration is the newest and arguably most ambi-
tious collaboration to date between UCLA and VNU-HCM. Cancer levels and
morbidity rates in Vietnam are quite high (73% death rate), and as a result,
VNU has developed strengths in certain types of cancer (liver, cervical, stom-
ach) as well as research in cancer stem cells and immune therapy. JCCC’s
strengths are in translational science, cancer prevention and screening, and
cancer therapy. Beginning with a comprehensive approach for liver cancer
and cervical cancer, the collaboration will be a model for establishing bio-
medical research and training, will establish comprehensive cancer research
and therapy, and will contribute to a better understanding of cancer prevention
for the Asian American population in the U.S. The long-term goals will be to
expand cancer research collaboration to other Southeast Asian countries, to
establish a Nanocancer Asia-Pacific Network (including cancer research
centers in Vietnam, the U.S., China, Japan, and Korea), and to pursue virus
No. of Grants/Subgrants
$92,754,942 140
$12,780,118 92
$5,532,768 102
$3,070,887 42
$476,702 10
$365,550 2
$150,000 1
$115,130,967 389
AUGUST 2015 31
infection in cancer as a promising avenue in cancer research. Chart 1:
As Vietnam’s cancer research capabilities have expanded, its research
institutes and universities are successfully pursuing additional partnerships
with U.S. cancer institutes. The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer
Center (MDACC), consistently the top-ranked cancer center in the U.S., has
agreed in principle to collaborate with the Vietnam Academy of Science
and Technology, VNU-HCM, and the Ministry of Health (National Hospital
for Cancer) in order to help develop national oncology action plans while
also disseminating best practices through its cancer cell signaling course
to provide Vietnamese scientists with the latest advances in cancer treat-
ment, research, and prevention. Though in its early stages, the partnership
will eventually lead to the creation of a sister institute to MDACC in Vietnam
to promote cancer prevention and education, and to improve cancer treat-
ment, diagnosis, and research in Vietnam.
Another major collaboration between the U.S. and Vietnam is the Higher
Engineering Education Alliance Program (HEEAP), which was established
in 2010 through a partnership of Arizona State University, Intel Corporation,
and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Seeded by the
three original partners at $5 million, the project has since expanded to will be work-ready Vietnamese engineering graduates who possess the
$40 million through additional partners such as Siemens, National Instru- applied and technical communication skills required to excel in multina-
ments, and Cadence. The purpose of the program is to modernize the top tional corporations.
engineering and technical vocational universities in Vietnam through developing The above is just a sampling of the types of cooperation that have flour-
experienced university leadership, constructing innovative and effective cur- ished in the fields of health and engineering. In fact, Vietnamese and U.S.
riculum, and promoting university engagement. Through faculty workshops, research collaboration has expanded into a number of other fields, too,
offered at Arizona State University and abroad, HEEAP is enhancing traditional such as agriculture, environmental and conservation sciences, and marine
theory-based engineering and technical vocational programs by advocating sciences. As an example, the Agriculture Genetics Institute (AGI), under
the addition of applied and hands-on instructional approaches. The results Vietnam’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, developed a

Table 2: Top 20 Recipients of U.S. Federal Grants / Subgrants in Vietnam (2008-2015)

Vietnamese Organizations Total Grant/Subgrant Total No. of

Amounts Grants/Subgrants
Vietnam Administration for HIV/AIDS Control $49,139,808 7
Ho Chi Minh City AIDS Committee $21,119,749 5
Natl Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology $5,694,072 24
Hanoi School of Public Health $2,443,570 7
Vietnam National Lung Hospital $1,782,950 16
Vietnam Department of Animal Health $1,763,519 7
Pasteur Institute of Ho Chi Minh $1,656,995 3
Peace Trees Vietnam $1,523,719 7
Center for Community Health Research and Development $1,370,000 3
Pacific Scientific and Technical Joint Stock $1,335,160 1
Ministry Of Labor/Invalids/Social Affairs $1,321,025 7
Ho Chi Minh PAC $1,169,315 3
Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry $1,050,000 4
Institute for Preventative Medicine $856,458 5
Hanoi Center for HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control $774,032 4
Dien Bien Provincial AIDS Center $768,796 5
Hue Monuments Conservation Centre $729,084 2
Pasteur Institute $725,000 2
Quang Ninh Provincial AIDS Center $693,608 6
Ministry Of Health, Vietnam $690,000 2

32 NCURA Magazine
 Table 3: U.S. Federal Grants / Subgrants to Vietnamese Universities (2008-2015)
Total Grant/ No. of
Vietnamese Universities Subgrant Amounts Grants/Subgrants
Hanoi Medical University $660,838 6
University of Science Vietnam National University-Ho Chi Minh City $421,426 10
University of Medicine and Pharmacy $172,118 2
Vietnam National University $160,380 10
Tan Tao University $120,000 2
International University of Vietnam National $115,000 6
University of Economics and Law-Vietnam National University-Ho Chi Minh City $86,248 2
Thai Nguyen University Learning Resource Center $59,990 1
Vietnam National University, School of Education $42,568 1
Tay Bac University $29,890 1
Vinh University $27,969 1
Hanoi University of Science and Technology $10,000 1
Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology <$10,000 1
Hong Duc University <$10,000 1
Ton Duc Thang University <$10,000 2
Can Tho University <$10,000 1
Ho Chi Minh City University of Pedagogy <$10,000 1
Vietnamese Language Center - Hanoi University <$10,000 1
Quang Nam University <$10,000 1
Nha Trang University <$10,000 1
Hoa Sen University <$10,000 2
Binh Duong University <$10,000 1
Thai Nguyen University <$10,000 1
Grand Total $1,938,698 56

range of joint research labs and agreements with U.S. partners such as the
Danforth Center and the University of Missouri.
Overall, it is apparent that the 20 years of normalization have yielded
a number of important scientific collaborations that will benefit both the
U.S. and Vietnam and their respective populations. It is also clear that while
diplomatic normalization is an essential building block to scientific part-
nerships, successful collaborations are predicated on trust, the availability
of funding, and dedicated scientists and research administrators in both
countries who were willing to believe in the blossoming of science diplo-
macy in the wake of normal diplomacy and were willing to wade through
the regulatory changes and establish new contract terms and agreements
that were acceptable to the pioneering collaborators. While every bilateral
relationship has its own idiosyncrasies, it is possible to ascertain some
patterns and much cause for hope for the eventual establishment and
expansion of U.S. research collaboration with researchers in Myanmar,
Cuba, and perhaps someday Iran and North Korea. N
Additional Resources:
Dr. Tran Ngoc Ca, Counselor and Head of Science and Technology Office in
Vietnam Embassy in Washington, DC:
Phone: +1-202-256-3219 • E-mail: tnca@most.gov.vn or tranngocca@gmail.com
Vietnam Education Foundation:
Phone: +1-703-351-5053 • http://home.vef.gov
Higher Engineering Education Alliance Program (HEEAP):
Phone: +1-480-727-4184 • http://heeap.org
Tran Ngoc Ca is Counselor and Head of Science and Technology
Office in the Vietnam Embassy in Washington D.C. Previously, he
was the Director of the Secretariat for the National Council for Sci-
ence and Technology Policy (NCSTP), and the Personal Assistant to
Science and Technology Minister and Deputy Director, National In-
stitute for Science and Technology Policy and Strategy Studies (NIST-
PASS), in Hanoi, Vietnam.
Dr. Ca received an engineering degree at Moscow Mining University (former Soviet
Union), a Master’s degree in science and technology policy at Lund University (Sweden),
and a Ph.D. on the economics of innovation at the University of Edinburgh (UK). He
spent time in a number of U.S. universities including UC Davis, UC Berkeley and Stanford
as a visiting Fulbright scholar
Jesse J.K. Szeto is the Senior Manager for Global Operations at the
National Council of University Research Administrators (NCURA),
which serves as the Horizon 2020 National Contact Point for Legal
and Financial Affairs for the U.S. He has been a university adminis-
trator in both the University of Wisconsin and the University of Cali-
fornia, and he has also managed economic and social development
projects for the State of California, the United Nations, and the Swedish
government. He also currently serves as U.S. Advisor to Sri Lanka-based Verité Research.
He received his Master’s degree in International Development from the International
University of Japan and his Bachelor’s degree in East Asian Studies from Harvard Uni-
versity. He can be reached at szeto@ncura.edu.

AUGUST 2015 33